
J MI 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No.. _ 

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Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



I 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



ETERNAL LIFE 



BY 

/ 

Henry Drummond, f.r.s.e., f.g.s 



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- 



1FEC 11 1896/ s%% } 



T , w 



HENRY ALTEMUS 









COPYRIGHTED 1 896 

by HENRY AIvTKMUS 




Henry Altemus Manufacturer 
phii.adei.phia 



ETERNAL LIFE. 

" This is Life Eternal— that they might know Thee, 
the True God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." 
— Jesus Christ. 

" Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were 
there no changes in the environment but such as the 
organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it 
never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, 
there would be eternal existence and eternal knowl- 
edge."— Herbert Spencer. 

One of the most startling achievements of re- 
cent science is a definition of Eternal Life. To 
the religious mind this is a contribution of im- 
mense moment. For eighteen hundred years only- 
one definition of Life Eternal was before the 
world. Now there are two. 

Through all these centuries revealed religion 
had this doctrine to itself. Ethics had a voice, as 
well as Christianity, on the question of the sum- 
mum bonum ; Philosophy ventured to speculate on 
the Being of a God. But no source outside Chris- 
tianity contributed anything to the doctrine of 
Eternal Life. Apart from Revelation, this great 
truth was unguaranteed. It was the one thing in 
the Christian system that most needed verifica- 
tion from without, yet none was forthcoming. 
And never has any further light been thrown 

5 



6 ETERNAL LIFE. 

upon the question why in its very nature the 
Christian Life should be Eternal. Christianity 
itself even upon this point has been obscure. Its 
decision upon the bare fact is authoritative and 
specific. But as to what there is in the Spiritual 
Life necessarily endowing it with the element of 
Eternity, the maturest theology is all but silent. 

It has been reserved for modern biology at once 
to defend and illuminate this central truth of the 
Christian faith. And hence in the interests of 
religion, practical and evidential, this second and 
scientific definition of Eternal Life is to be hailed 
as an announcement of commanding interest. 
Why it should not yet have received the recogni- 
tion of religious thinkers — for already it has lain 
some years unnoticed — is not difficult to under- 
stand. The belief in Science as an aid to faith is 
not yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching 
there for witnesses to the highest Christian truths. 
The inspiration of Nature, it is thought, extends 
to the humbler doctrines alone. And yet the rev- 
erent inquirer who guides his steps in the right 
direction may find even now in the still dim twi- 
light of the scientific world much that will illumin- 
ate and intensify his sublimest faith. Here, at 
least, comes, and comes unbidden, the opportunity 
of testing the most vital point of the Christian 
system. Hitherto the Christian philosopher has 
remained content with the scientific evidence 
against Annihilation. Or, with Butler, he has 
reasoned from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a 
future life. Or again, with the authors of " The 



ETERNAL LIFE. 7 

Unseen Universe," the apologist has constructed 
elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments 
upon the Law of Continuity. But now we may 
draw nearer. For the first time Science touches 
Christianity positively on the doctrine of Immortal- 
ity. It confronts us with an actual definition of 
an Eternal Life, based on a full and rigidly accu- 
rate examination of the necessary conditions. 
Science does not pretend that it can fulfil these 
conditions. Its votaries make no claim to possess 
the Eternal Life. It simply postulates the requisite 
conditions without concerning itself whether any 
organism should ever appear, or does now exist, 
which might fulfil them. The claim of religion, 
on the other hand, is that there are organisms 
which possess Eternal Life. And the problem for 
us to solve is this : Do those who profess to pos- 
sess Eternal Life fulfil the conditions required by 
Science, or are they different conditions ? In a 
word, Is the Christian conception of Eternal Life 
scientific ? 

It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset 
that the definition of Eternal Life drawn up by 
Science was framed without reference to religion. 
It must indeed have been the last thought with 
the thinker to whom we chiefly owe it, that in un- 
folding the conception of a Life in its very nature 
necessarily eternal, he was contributing to Theol- 
ogy- 

Mr. Herbert Spencer — for it is to him we owe 
it — would be the first to admit the impartiality of 
his definition ; and from the connection in which 



8 ETERNAL LIFE. 

it occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion 
was not even present to his mind. He is analyz- 
ing with minute care the relations between Envi- 
ronment and Life. He unfolds the principle ac- 
cording to which Life is high or low, long or short. 
He shows why organisms live and why they die. 
And finally he defines a condition of things in 
which an organism would never die — in which it 
would enjoy a perpetual and perfect Life. This 
to him is, of course, but a speculation. Life 
Eternal is a biological conceit. The conditions 
necessary to an Eternal Life do not exist in the 
natural world. So that the definition is alto- 
gether impartial and independent. A Perfect 
Life, to Science, is simply a thing which is theoret- 
ically possible — like a Perfect Vacuum. 

Before giving, in so many words, the definition 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer, it will render it fully in- 
telligible if we gradually lead up to it by a brief 
rehearsal of the few and simple biological facts 
on which it is based. In considering the subject 
of Death, we have formerly seen that there are 
degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives 
have more and fuller correspondence with Environ- 
ment than others. The amount of correspond- 
ence, again, is determined by the greater or less 
complexity of the organism. Thus a simple or- 
ganism like the Amoeba is possessed of very few 
correspondences. It is a mere sac of transparent 
structureless jelly for which organization has done 
almost nothing, and hence it can only communi- 
cate with the smallest possible area of Environ- 



ETERNAL LIFE, 9 

ment. An insect, in virtue of its more complex 
structure, corresponds with a wider area. Nature 
has endowed it with special faculties for reaching 
out to the Environment on many sides; it has 
more life than the Amoeba. In other words, it is 
a higher animal. Man again, whose body is still 
further differentiated, or broken up into different 
correspondences, finds himself en rapport with his 
surroundings to a further extent. And therefore 
he is higher still, more living still. And this law, 
that the degree of Life varies with the degree of 
correspondence, holds to the minutest detail 
throughout the entire range of living things. Life 
becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more 
and more sensitive and responsive to an ever- 
widening Environment as we rise in the chain of 
being. 

Now it will speedily appear that a distinct rela- 
tion exists, and must exist, between complexity 
and longevity. Death being brought about by the 
failure of an organism to adjust itself to some 
change in the Environment, it follows that those 
organisms which are able to adjust themselves 
most readily and successfully will live the longest. 
They will continue time after time to effect the 
appropriate adjustment, and their power of doing 
so will be exactly proportionate to their complexity 
— that is, to the amount of Environment they can 
control with their correspondences. There are, 
for example, in the Environment of every animal 
certain things which are directly or indirectly 
dangerous to Life. If its equipment of cor- 



10 ETERNAL LIFE. 

respondences is not complete enough to enable it 
to avoid these dangers in all possible circum- 
stances, it must sooner or later succumb. The 
organism then with the most perfect set of cor- 
respondences, that is, the highest and most com- 
plex organism, has an obvious advantage over less 
complex forms. It can adjust itself more per- 
fectly and frequently. But this is just the biolog- 
ical way of saying that it can live the longest. 
And hence the relation between complexity and 
longevity may be expressed thus — the most com- 
plex organisms are the longest lived. 

To state and illustrate the proposition con- 
versely may make the point still further clear. 
The less highly organized an animal is, the less 
will be its chance of remaining in lengthened cor- 
respondence with its Environment. At some time 
or other in its career circumstances are sure to 
occur to which the comparatively immobile organ- 
ism finds itself structurally unable to respond. 
Thus a Medusa tossed ashore by a wave, finds 
itself so out of correspondence with its new sur- 
roundings that its life must pay the forfeit. 
Had it been able by internal change to adapt it- 
self to external change — to correspond sufficiently 
with the new environment, as for example to 
crawl, as an eel would have done, back into that 
environment with which it had completer cor- 
respondence — its life might have been spared. 
But had this happened it would continue to live 
henceforth only so long as it could continue in 
correspondence with all the circumstances in 



ETERNAL LIFE. 11 

which it might find itself. Even if, however, it 
became complex enough to resist the ordinary and 
direct dangers of its environment, it might still be 
out of correspondence with others. A naturalist 
for instance, might take advantage of its want of 
correspondence with particular sights and sounds 
to capture it for his cabinet, or the sudden drop- 
ping of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw 
might cause its untimely death. 

Again, in the case of a bird in virtue of its 
more complex organization, there is command over 
a much larger area of environment. It can take 
precautions such as the Medusa could not ; it has 
increased facilities for securing food ; its adjust- 
ments all round are more complex ; and therefore 
it ought to be able to maintain its Life for a 
longer period. There is still a large area, how- 
ever, over which it has no control. Its power of 
internal change is not complete enough to afford 
it perfect correspondence with all external changes, 
and its tenure of. Life is to that extent insecure. 
Its correspondence, moreover, is limited even with 
regard to those external conditions with which it 
has been partially established. Thus a bird in 
ordinary circumstances has no difficulty in adapt- 
ing itself to changes of temperature, but if these 
are varied beyond the point at which its capacity 
of adjustment begins to fail — for example, during 
an extreme winter — the organism being unable to 
meet the condition must perish. The human 
organism, on the other hand, can respond to this 
external condition, as well as to countless other 



12 ETERNAL LIFE. 

vicissitudes under which lower forms would inevi- 
tably succumb. Man's adjustments are to the 
largest known area of Environment, and hence he 
ought to be able furthest to prolong his Life. 

It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in 
the scale of Life we rise also in the scale of lon- 
gevity. The lowest organisms are, as a rule, 
shortlived, and the rate of mortality diminishes 
more or less regularly as we ascend in the animal 
scale. So extraordinary indeed is the mortality 
among lowly-organized forms that in most cases a 
compensation is actually provided, nature endow- 
ing them with a marvellously increased fertility in 
order to guard against absolute extinction. Al- 
most all lower forms are furnished not only with 
great reproductive powers, but with different 
methods of propagation, by which, in various cir- 
cumstances, and in an incredibly short time, the 
species can be indefinitely multiplied. Ehrenberg 
found that by the repeated subdivisions of a single 
Paramecium, no fewer than 268,000,000 similar 
organisms might be produced in one month. This 
power steadily decreases as we rise higher in the 
scale, until forms are reached in which one, two, 
or at most three, come into being at a birth. It 
decreases, however because it is no longer needed. 
These forms have a much longer lease of Life. 
And it may be taken as a rule, although it has 
exceptions, that complexity in animal organisms 
is always associated with longevity. 

It may be objected that these illustrations are 
taken merely from morbid conditions. But 



ETERNAL LIFE. 13 

whether the Life be cut short by accident or by 
disease the principle is the same. All dissolution 
is brought about practically in the same way. A 
certain condition in the Environment fails to be 
met by a corresponding condition in the organism, 
and this is death. And conversely the more an 
organism in virtue of its complexity can adapt 
itself to all the parts of its Environment, the 
longer it will live. " It is manifest a priori" says 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, " that since changes in the 
physical state of the environment, as also those 
mechanical actions and those variations of avail- 
able food which occur in it, are liable to stop the 
processes going on in the organism ; and since the 
adaptive changes in the organism have the effects 
of directly or indirectly counterbalancing these 
changes in the environment, it follows that the 
life of the organism will be short or long, low or 
high, according to the extent to which changes in 
the environment are met by corresponding changes 
in the organism. Allowing a margin for pertur- 
bations, the life will continue only while the cor- 
respondence continues ; the completeness of the 
life will be proportionate to the completeness of 
the correspondence ; and the life will be perfect 
only when the correspondence is perfect." l 

We are now all but in sight of our scientific 
definition of Eternal Life. The desideratum is 
an organism with a correspondence of a very ex- 
ceptional kind. It must lie beyond the reach of 
those " mechanical actions" and those M variations 



i <« 



Principles of Biology," p. 82. 



14 ETERNAL LIFE. 

of available food," which are " liable to stop the 
processes going on in the organism." Before we 
reach an Eternal Life we must pass beyond that 
point at which all ordinary correspondences inevi- 
tably cease. We must find an organism so high 
and complex, that at some point in its develop- 
ment it shall have added a correspondence which 
organic death is powerless to arrest. We must, in 
short, pass beyond that finite region where the cor- 
respondences depend on evanescent and material 
media, and enter a further region where the En- 
vironment corresponded with is itself Eternal. 
Such an Environment exists. The Environment 
of the Spiritual world is outside the influence of 
these " mechanical actions," which sooner or later 
interrupt the processes going on in all finite organ- 
isms. If then we can find an organism which has 
established a correspondence with the spiritual 
world, that correspondence will possess the ele- 
ments of eternity — provided only one other con- 
dition be fulfilled. 

That condition is that the Environment be per- 
fect. If it is not perfect, if it is not the highest, 
if it is endowed with the finite quality of change, 
there can be no guarantee that the Life of its cor- 
respondents will be eternal. Some change might 
occur in it which the correspondents had no adap- 
tive changes to meet, and Life would cease. But 
grant a spiritual organism in perfect correspond- 
ence with a perfect spiritual Environment, and 
the conditions necessary to Eternal Life are satis- 
fied. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 15 

The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's defi- 
nition of Eternal Life may now be given. And it 
will be seen that they include essentially the con- 
ditions here laid down. " Perfect correspondence 
would be perfect life. Were there no changes in 
the environment but such as the organism had 
adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail 
in the efficiency with which it met them, there 
would be eternal existence and eternal knowl- 
edge." l Reserving the question as to the possible 
fulfilment of these conditions, let us turn for a 
moment to the definition of Eternal Life laid 
down by Christ. Let us place it alongside the 
definition of Science, and mark the points of con- 
tact. Uninterrupted correspondence with a per- 
fect Environment is Eternal Life according to 
Science. " This is Life Eternal," said Christ, " that 
they may know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." 2 Life Eternal 
is to know God. To know God is to " correspond " 
with God. To correspond with God is to corres- 
pond with a Perfect Environment. And the or- 
ganism which attains to this, in the nature of 
things must live for ever. Here is " eternal ex- 
istence and eternal knowledge." 

The main point of agreement between the 
scientific and the religious definition is that Life 
consists in a peculiar and personal relation defined 
as a "correspondence." This conception, that 
Life consists in correspondences, has been so abund- 

1 "Principles of Biology/' p. 88. 

2 John xvii. 

13 



16 ETERNAL LIFE. 

antly illustrated already that it is now unneces- 
sary to discuss it further. All Life indeed con- 
sists essentially in correspondences with various 
Environments. The artist's life is a correspond- 
ence with art ; the musician's with music. To cut 
them off from these Environments is in that re- 
lation to cut off their Life. To be cut off from 
all Environment is death. To find a new En- 
vironment again and cultivate relation with it is 
to find a new Life. To live is to correspond, and 
to correspond is to live. So much is true in 
Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it 
is of great importance to observe that to Religion 
also the conception of Life is a correspondence. 
No truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly 
or wilfully travestied than the doctrine of Im- 
mortality. The popular idea, in spite of a hun- 
dred protests, is that Eternal Life is to live for- 
ever. A single glance at the locus classicus, might 
have made this error impossible. There we are 
told that Life Eternal is not to live. This is Life 
Eternal — to know. And yet — and it is a notori- 
ous instance of the fact that men who are opposed 
to Religion will take their conceptions of its pro- 
foundest truths from mere vuglar perversions — 
this view still represents to many cultivated men 
the Scriptural doctrine of Eternal Life. From 
time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, 
not unseldom from lips which Science ought to 
have taught more caution, that the Future Life 
of Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, 
an eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite con- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 17 

tinuance of being. The Bible never could com- 
mit itself to any such empty platitude ; nor could 
Christianity ever offer to the world a hope so 
colorless. Not that Eternal Life has nothing to 
do with everlastingness. That is part of the con- 
ception. And it is this aspect of the question 
that first arrests us in the field of Science. But 
even Science has more in its definition than 
longevity. It has a correspondence and an En-- 
vironment ; and although it cannot fill up these 
terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the 
nature of the relation, the kind of thing that is 
meant by Life. Science speaks to us indeed of 
much more than numbers of years. It defines 
degrees of Life. It explains a widening Environ- 
ment. It unfolds the relation between a widen- 
ing Environment and increasing complexity in 
organisms. And if it has no absolute contribu- 
tion to the content of Religion, its analogies are 
not limited to a point. It yields to Immortality, 
and this is the most that Science can do in any 
case, the broad framework for a doctrine. 

The further definition, moreover, of this corre- 
spondence as knowing is in the highest degree 
significant. Is not this the precise quality in an 
Eternal correspondence which the analogies of 
Science wouid prepare us to look for ? Longevity 
is associated with complexity. And complexity in 
organisms is manifested by the successive addition 
of correspondences, each richer and larger than 
those which have gone before. The differentiation, 
therefore, of the spiritual organism ought to be 



18 ETERNAL LIFE. 

signalized by the addition of the highest possible cor- 
respondence. It is not essential to the idea that the 
correspondence should be altogether novel ; it is 
necessary rather that it should not. An al- 
together new correspondence appearing suddenly 
without shadow or prophecy would be a violation 
of continuity. What we should expect would be 
something new, and yet something that we were 
already prepared for. We should look for a fur- 
ther development in harmony with current devel- 
opments ; the extension of the last and highest 
Correspondence in a new and higher direction. 
And this is exactly what we have. In the world 
with which biology deals, Evolution culminates in 
Knowledge. 

At whatever point in the zoological scale this 
correspondence, or set of correspondences, begins, 
it is certain there is nothing higher. In its stunted 
infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest be- 
ginnings in animal intelligence, it is a thing so 
wonderful, as to strike every thoughtful and 
reverent observer with awe. Even among the 
invertebrates so marvellously are these or kindred 
powers displayed, that naturalists do not hesitate 
now, on the ground of intelligence at least, to 
classify some of the humblest creatures next to man 
himself. 1 Nothing in nature, indeed, is so unlike 
the rest of nature, so prophetic of what is beyond 
it, so supernatural. And as manifested in Man who 
crowns creation with his all-embracing conscious- 

1 Tide Sir John Lubbock's " Ants, Bees, and Wasps," 
PP. 1, 181. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 19 

ness, there is but one word to describe his knowl- 
edge ; it is Divine. If then from this point there 
is to be any further Evolution, this surely must be 
the correspondence in which it shall take place ? 
This correspondence is great enough to demand 
development ; and yet it is little enough to need 
it. The magnificence of what it has achieved 
relatively, is the pledge of the possibility of more ; 
the insignificance of its conquest absolutely in- 
volves the probability of still richer triumphs. If 
anything, in short, in humanity is to go on it 
must be this. Other correspondences may con- 
tinue likewise ; others, again, we can well afford 
to leave behind. But this cannot cease. This cor- 
respondence—or this set of correspondences, for it 
is very complex — is it not that to which men with 
one consent would attach Eternal Life ? Is there 
anything else to which they would attach it ? Is 
anything better conceivable, anything worthier, 
fuller, nobler, anything which would represent a 
higher form of Evolution or offer a more perfect 
ideal for an Eternal Life ? 

But these are questions of quality ; and the mo- 
ment we pass from quantity to quality we leave 
Science behind. In the vocabulary of Science, 
Eternity is only the fraction of a word. It means 
mere everlastingness. To Religion, on the other 
hand, Eternity has little to do with time. To 
correspond with the God of Science, the Eternal 
Unknowable, would be everlasting existence ; to 
correspond with " the true God and Jesus Christ," 
is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life 



20 ETERNAL LIFE. 

alone makes the heaven ; mere everlastingness 
might be no boon. Even the brief span of the 
temporal life is too long for those who spend its 
years in sorrow. Time itself, let alone Eternity, 
is all but excruciating to Doubt. And many be- 
sides Schopenhauer have secretly regarded con- 
sciousness as the hideous mistake and malady of 
Nature. Therefore we must not only have quan- 
tity of years, to speak in the language of the 
present, but quality of correspondence. When 
we leave Science behind, this correspondence also 
receives a higher name. It becomes communion. 
Other names there are for it, religious and theolog- 
ical. It may be included in a general expression, 
Faith ; or we may call it by a personal and specific 
term, Love. For the knowing of a Whole so 
great involves the co-operation of many parts. 

Communion with God — can it be demonstrated 
in terms of Science that this is a correspondence 
which will never break ? We do not appeal to 
Science for such a testimony. We have asked 
for its conception of an Eternal Life ; and we 
have received for answer that Eternal Life would 
consist in a correspondence which should never 
cease, with an Environment w T hich should never 
pass away. And yet what would Science demand 
of a perfect correspondence that is not met by 
this, the 'knowing of God ? There is no other cor- 
respondence which could satisfy one at least of 
the conditions. Not one could be named which 
would not bear on the face of it the mark and 
pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 21 

stands alone. To know God, to be linked with 
God, to be linked with Eternity — if this is not the 
" eternal existence " of biology, what can more 
nearly approach it ? And yet we are still a great 
way off — to establish a communication with the 
Eternal is not to secure Eternal Life. It must be 
assumed that the communication could be sus- 
tained. And to assume this would be to beg the 
question. So that we have still to prove Eternal 
Life. But let it be again repeated, we are not 
here seeking proofs. We are seeking light. We 
are merely reconnoitering from the furthest prom- 
ontory of Science if so be that through the haze 
we may discern the outline of a distant coast and 
come to some conclusion as to the possibility of 
landing. 

But, it may be replied, it is not open to any one 
handling the question of Immortality from the 
side of Science to remain neutral as to the question 
of fact. It is not enough to announce that he has 
no addition to make to the positive argument. 
This may be permitted with reference to other 
points of contact between Science and Religion, 
but not with this. We are told this question is 
settled — that there is no positive side. Science 
meets the entire conception of Immortality with a 
direct negative. In the face of a powerful con- 
sensus against even the possibility of a Future 
Life, to content oneself with saying that Science 
pretended to no argument in favor of it would be 
at once impertinent and dishonest. We must 



22 ETERNAL LIFE. 

therefore devote ourselves for a moment to the 
question of possibility- 

The problem is, with a material body and a 
mental organization inseparably connected with it, 
to bridge the grave. Emotion, volition, thought 
itself, are functions of the brain. When the brain 
is impaired, they are impaired. When the brain 
is not, they are not. Everything ceases with the 
dissolution of the material fabric ; muscular activ- 
ity and mental activity perish alike. With the 
pronounced positive statements on this point from 
many departments of modern Science we are all 
familiar. The fatal verdict is recorded by a hun- 
dred hands and with scarcely a shadow of qualifi- 
cation. " Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled 
to reject the idea of an individual immortality and 
of a personal continuance after death. With the 
decay and dissolution of its material substratum, 
through which alone it has acquired a conscious 
existence and become a person, and upon which it 
was dependent, the spirit must cease to exist." * 
To the same effect, Vogt : " Physiology decides defi- 
nitely and categorically against individual im- 
mortality, as against any special existence of the 
soul. The soul does not enter the foetus like the 
evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a product 
of the development of the brain, just as muscular 
activity is a product of muscular development, 
and secretion a product of glandular development." 
After a careful review of the position of recent 
Science with regard to the whole doctrine, Mr. 

1 Buchner: " Force and Matter," 3d ed., p. 232. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 23 

Graham sums up thus : " Such is the argument of 
Science, seemingly decisive against a future Life. 
As we listen to her array of syllogisms, our hearts 
die within us. The hopes of men, placed in one 
scale to be weighed, seem to fly up against the 
massive weight of her evidence, placed in the 
other. It seems as if all our arguments were vain 
and unsubstantial, as if our future expectations 
were the foolish dreams of children, as if there 
could not be any other possible verdict arrived at 
upon the evidence brought forward." 1 

Can we go on in the teeth of so real an obstruc- 
tion ? Has not our own weapon turned against 
us, Science abolishing with authoritative hand the 
very truth we are asking it to define ? 

What the philosopher has to throw into the 
other scale can be easily indicated. Generally 
speaking, he demurs to the dogmatism of the con- 
clusion. That mind and brain react, that the 
mental and the physiological processes are related, 
and very intimately related, is beyond controversy. 
But how they are related, he submits, is still 
altogether unknown. The correlation of mind 
and brain do not involve their identity. And not 
a few authorities accordingly have consistently 
hesitated to draw any conclusion at all. Even 
Biichner's statement turns out, on close examina- 
tion, to be tentative in the extreme. In prefacing 
his chapter on Personal Continuance, after a single 
sentence on the dependence of the soul and its 
manifestations upon a material substratum, he re- 

1 "The Creed of Science," p. 169. 



24 ETERNAL LIFE. 

marks, " Though we are unable to form a definite 
idea as to the how of this connection, we are still 
by these facts justified in asserting, that the mode 
of this connection renders it apparently impossible 
that they should continue to exist separately." 1 
There is, therefore, a flaw at this point in the 
argument for materialism. It may not help the 
spiritualist in the least degree positively. He may 
be as far as ever from a theory of how conscious- 
ness could continue without the material tissue. 
But his contention secures for him the right of 
speculation. The path beyond may lie in hopeless 
gloom ; but it is not barred. He may bring for- 
ward his theory if he will. And this is something. 
For a permission to go on is often the most that 
Science can grant to Religion. 

Men have taken advantage of this loophole in 
various ways. And though it cannot be said that 
these speculations offer us more than a probabil- 
ity, this is still enough to combine with the deep- 
seated expectation in the bosom of mankind and 
give fresh lustre to the hope of a future life. 
Whether we find relief in the theory of a simple 
dualism ; whether with Ulrici we further define 
the soul as an invisible enswathement of the body, 
material yet non-atomic ; whether, with the "Un- 
seen Universe," we are helped by the spectacle of 
known forms of matter shading off into an ever- 
growing subtilty, mobility, and immateriality ; or 
whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as " the 
ordered unity of many elements," it is certain 

1 " Force and Matter," p. 231. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 25 

that shapes can be given to the conception of a 
correspondence which shall bridge the grave such 
as to satisfy minds too much accustomed to weigh 
evidence to put themselves off with fancies. 

But whether the possibilities of physiology or 
the theories of philosophy do or do not substan- 
tially assist us in realizing Immortality, is to 
Religion, to Religion at least regarded from the 
present point of view, of inferior moment. The 
fact of Immortality rests for us on a different 
basis. Probably, indeed, after all the Christian 
philosopher never engaged himself in a more 
superfluous task than in seeking along physiolog- 
ical lines to find room for a soul. The theory of 
Christianity has only to be fairly stated to make 
manifest its thorough independence of all the 
usual speculations on immortality. The theory is 
not that thought, volition, or emotion, as such 
are to survive the grave. The difficulty of hold- 
ing a doctrine is this form, in spite of what has 
been advanced to the contrary, in spite of the 
hopes and wishes of mankind, in spite of all the 
scientific and philosophical attempts to make it 
tenable, is still profound. No secular theory of 
personal continuance, as even Butler acknowl- 
edged, does not equally demand the eternity of the 
brute. No secular theory defines the point in the 
chain of Evolution at which organisms become 
endowed with Immortality. No secular theory 
explains the condition of the endowment, nor in- 
dicates its goal. And if we have nothing more 
to fan hope than the unexplored mysterv of the 



26 ETERNAL LIFE, 

whole region, or the unknown remainders among 
the potencies of Life, then, as those who have 
" hope only in this world," we are " of all men the 
most miserable." 

When we turn, on the other hand, to the doc- 
trine as it came from the lips of Christ, we find 
ourselves in an entirely different region. He 
makes no attempt to project the material into the 
immaterial. The old elements, however refined 
and subtle as to their matter, are not in themselves 
to inherit the Kingdom of God. That which is 
flesh is flesh. Instead of attaching Immortality 
to the natural organism, He introduces a new and 
original factor which none of the secular, and few 
even of the theological theories, seem to take 
sufficiently into account. To Christanity, u he 
that hath the Son of God hath Life, and he that 
hath not the Son hath not Life." This, as we 
take it, defines the correspondence which is to 
bridge the grave. This is the clue to the nature 
of the Life that lies at the back of the spiritual 
organism. And this is the true solution of the 
mystery of Eternal Life. 

There lies a something at the back of the cor- 
respondences of the spiritual organism — just as 
there lies a something at the back of the natural 
correspondence. To say that Life is a correspond- 
ence is only to express the partial truth. There 
is something behind. Life manifests itself in cor- 
respondences. But what determines them ? The 
organism exhibits a variety of correspondences. 
What organizes them ? As in the natural, so in 



ETERNAL LIFE. 27 

the spiritual, there is a Principle of Life. We 
cannot get rid of that term. However clumsy, 
however provisional, however much a mere cloak 
for ignorance, Science as yet is unable to dispense 
with the idea of a Principle of Life. We must 
work with the word till we get a better. Now that 
which determines the correspondence of the 
spiritual organism is a Principle of Spiritual Life. 
It is a new and Divine Possession. He that hath 
the Son hath Life ; conversely, he that hath Life 
hath the Son. And this indicates at once the 
quality and the quantity of the correspondence 
which is to bridge the grave. He that hath Life 
hath the Son. He possesses the Spirit of the Son. 
That Spirit is, so to speak, organized within him 
by the Son. It is the manifestation of the new 
nature — of which more anon. The fact to note 
at present is that this is not an organic correspond- 
ence, but a spiritual correspondence. It comes 
not from generation, but from regeneration. The 
relation between the spiritual man and his En- 
vironment is, in theological language, a filial re- 
lation. With the new Spirit, the filial correspond- 
ence, he knows the Father and this is Life 
Eternal. This is not only the real relation, but 
the only possible relation : " Neither knoweth any 
man the Father save the Son, and he to whomso- 
ever the Son will reveal Him." And this on purely 
natural grounds. It takes the Divine to know the 
Divine — but in no more mysterious sense than it 
takes the human to understand the human. The 
analogy, indeed, for the whole field here has been 



28 ETERNAL LIFE, 

finely expressed already by Paul: "What man," 
he asks, " knoweth the things of a man, save the 
spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things 
of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, 
but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know 
the things that are freely given to us of God." * 

It were idle, such being the quality of the new 
relation, to add that this also contains the guaran- 
tee of its eternity. Here at last is a correspond- 
ence which will never cease. Its powers in 
bridging the grave have been tried. The corre- 
spondence of the spiritual man possesses the super- 
natural virtues of the Resurrection and the Life. 
It is known by former experiment to have survived 
the " changes in the physical state of the en- 
vironment," and those "mechanical actions" and 
" variations of available food," which Mr. Herbert 
Spencer tells us are " liable to stop the processes 
going on in the organism." In short, this is a cor- 
respondence which at once satisfies the demands 
of Science and Religion. In mere quantity it is 
different from every other correspondence known. 
Setting aside everything else in Religion, every- 
thing adventitious, local, and provisional ; dissect- 
ing into the bone and marrow we find this— a cor- 
respondence which can never break with an En- 
vironment which can never change. Here is a 
relation established with Eternity. The passing 
years lay no limiting hand on it. Corruption in- 
jures it not. It survives Death. It, and it only, 

1 1 Cor. ii. 11, 12. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 29 

will stretch beyond the grave and be found in- 
violate — 

" When the moon is old, 
And the stars are cold, 
And the books of the Judgment-day unfold." 

The misgiving which will creep sometimes over 
the brightest faith has already received its expres- 
sion and its rebuke : " Who shall separate us from 
the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
or sword ? " Shall these " changes in the physical 
state of the environment " which threaten death 
to the natural man destroy the spiritual ? Shall 
death, or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, 
arrest or tamper with his eternal correspondences ? 
" Nay, in all these things we are more than con- 
querors through Him that loved us. For I am 
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." l 

It may seem an objection to some that the "per- 
fect correspondence " should come to man in so 
extraordinary a way. The earlier stages in the 
doctrine are promising enough ; they are entirely 
in line with Nature. And if Nature had also 
furnished the "perfect correspondence " demanded 
for an Eternal Life the position might be unassail- 
able. But this sudden reference to a something 
1 Kom. viii. 35-39. 



30 ETERNAL LIFE. 

outside the natural Environment destroys the 
continuity, and discovers a permanent weakness 
in the whole theory ? 

To which there is a twofold reply. In the first 
place, to go outside what we call Nature is not to 
go outside Environment. Nature, the natural 
Environment, is only a part of Environment. 
There is another large part which, though some 
profess to have no correspondence with it, is not 
on that account unreal, or even unnatural. The 
mental and moral world is unknown to the plant. 
But it is real. It cannot be affirmed either that 
it is unnatural to the plant ; although it might be 
said that from the point of view of the Vegetable 
Kingdom it was supernatural. Things are natural 
or supernatural simply according to where one 
stands. Man is supernatural to the mineral ; God 
is supernatural to the man. When a mineral is 
seized upon by the living plant and elevated to 
the organic kingdom, no tresspass against Nature 
is committed. It merely enters a larger Environ- 
ment, which before was supernatural to it, but 
which now is entirely natural. When the heart 
of a man, again, is seized upon by the quickening 
Spirit of God, no further violence is done to 
natural law. It is another case of the inorganic, 
so to speak, passing into the organic. 

But, in the second place, it is complained as if 
it were an enormity in itself that the spiritual 
correspondence should be furnished from the 
spiritual world. And to this the answer lies in 
the same direction. Correspondence in any case 



ETERNAL LIFE. 31 

is the gift of Environment. The natural Environ- 
ment gives men their natural faculties; the spirit- 
ual affords them their spiritual faculties. It is 
natural for the spiritual Environment to supply 
the spiritual faculties ; it would be quite unnatu- 
ral for the natural Environment to do it. The 
natural law of Biogenesis forbids it ; the moral 
fact that the finite cannot comprehend the Infinite 
is against it ; the spiritual principle that flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God renders 
it absurd. Not, however, that the spiritual facul- 
ties are, as it were, manufactured in the spiritual 
world and supplied ready-made to the spiritual 
organism — forced upon it as an external equip- 
ment. This certainly is not involved in saying 
that the spiritual faculties are furnished by the 
spiritual world. Organisms are not added to by 
accretion, as in the case of minerals, but by 
growth. And the spiritual faculties are organized 
in the spiritual protoplasm of the soul, just as 
other faculties are organized in the protoplasm of 
the body. The plant is made of materials which 
have once been inorganic. An organizing prin- 
ciple not belonging to their kingdom lays hold of 
them and elaborates them until they have corre- 
spondences with the kingdom to which the organ- 
izing principle belonged. Their original organ- 
izing principle, if it can be called by this name, 
was Crystallization ; so that we have now a dis- 
tinctly foreign power organizing in totally new and 
higher directions. In the spiritual world, simi- 
larly, we find an organizing principle at work 

14 



32 ETERNAL LIFE. 

among the materials of the organic kingdom, per- 
forming a further miracle, but not a different kind 
of miracle, producing organizations of a novel 
kind, but not by a novel method. The second 
process, in fact, is simply what an enlightened 
evolutionist would have expected from the firsto 
It marks the natural and legitimate progress of 
the development. And this in the line of the true 
Evolution — not the linear Evolution, which would 
look for the development of the natural man 
through powers already inherent, as if one were 
to look to Crystallization to accomplish the devel- 
opment of the mineral into the plant, — but that 
larger form of Evolution which includes among 
its factors the double Law of Biogenesis and the 
immense further truth that this involves. 

What is further included in this complex corre- 
spondence we shall have opportunity to illustrate 
afterwards. 1 Meantime let it be noted on what 
the Christian argument for Immortality really rests. 
It stands upon the pedestal on which the theolo- 
gian rests the whole of historical Christianity — 
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

It ought to be placed in the forefront of all 
Christian teaching that Christ's mission on earth 
was to give men Life. <; I am come," He said, 
" that ye might have Life, and that ye might have 
it more abundantly." And that He meant literal 
Life, literal spiritual and Eternal Life, is clear 
from the whole course of His teaching and acting. 
To impose a metaphorical meaning on the com- 

1 Vide " Conformity to Type," page 287. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 33 

monest word of the New Testament is to violate 
every canon of interpretation, and . at the same 
time to charge the greatest of teachers with per- 
sistently mystifying His hearers by an unusual use 
of so exact a vehicle for expressing definite 
thought as the Greek language, and that on the 
most momentous subject of which He ever spoke 
to men. It is a canon of interpretation, accord- 
ing to Alford, that " a figurative sense of words is 
never admissible except when required by the 
context." The context, in most cases, is not only 
directly unfavorable to a figurative meaning, but 
in innumerable instances in Christ's teaching Life 
is broadly contrasted with Death. In the teaching 
of the apostles, again, we find that, without ex- 
ception, they accepted thie term in its simple literal 
sense. Reuss defines the apostolic belief with his 
usual impartiality when — and the quotation is 
doubly pertinent here — he discovers in the apos- 
tle's conception of Life, first, "the idea of a real 
existence, an existence such as is proper to God and 
to the Word ; an imperishable existence — that is to 
say, not subject to the vicissitudes and imperfec- 
tions of the finite world. This primary idea is 
repeatedly expressed, at least in a negative form ; 
it leads to a doctrine of immortality, or, to speak 
more correctly, of life, far surpassing any that had 
been expressed in the formulas of the current 
philosophy or theology, and resting upon premises 
and conceptions altogether different. In fact, it 
can dispense both with the philosophical thesis 
of the immateriality or indestructibility of the 



34 ETERNAL LIFE. 

human soul, and with the theologicial thesis of a 
miraculous corporeal reconstruction of our person ; 
theses, the first of which is altogether foreign to 
the religion of the Bible, and the second abso- 
lutely opposed to reason." Second, " the idea of 
life, as it is conceived in this system, implies the 
idea of a power, an operation, a communication, 
since this life no longer remains, so to speak, latent 
or passive in God and in the Word, but through 
them reaches the believer. It is not a mental 
somnolent thing ; it is not a plant without fruit ; 
it is a germ which is to find fullest development." l 

If we are asked to define more clearly what is 
meant by this mysterious endowment of Life, we 
again hand over the difficulty to Science. When 
Science can define the Natural Life and the Physi- 
cal Force we may hope for further clearness on 
the nature and action of the Spiritual Powers. 
The effort to detect the living Spirit must be at 
least as idle as the attempt to subject protoplasm 
to microscopic examination in the hope of dis- 
covering Life. We are warned, also, not to expect 
too much. " Thou canst not tell whence it cometh 
or whither it goeth." This being its quality, 
when the Spiritual Life is discovered in the 
laboratory it will possibly be time to give it up 
altogether. It may say, as Socrates of his soul, 
" You may bury me — if you can catch me." 

Science never corroborates a spiritual truth 
without illuminating it. The threshold of Eter- 

1 " History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic 
Age," vol. ii. p. 496. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 35 

nity is a place where many shadows meet. And 
the light of Science here, where everything is so 
dark, is welcome a thousand times. Many men 
would be religious if they knew where to begin ; 
many would be more religious if they were sure 
where it would end. It is not indifference that 
keeps some men from God, but ignorance. " Good 
Master, what must I do to inherit Eternal Life ? " 
is still the deepest question of the age. What is 
Religion ? What am I to believe ? What seek 
with all my heart and soul and mind ? — this is the 
imperious question sent up to consciousness from 
the depths of being in all earnest hours ; sent down 
again, alas, with many of us, time after time, 
unanswered. Into all our thought and work and 
reading this question pursues us. But the theories 
are rejected one by one ; the great books are re- 
turned sadly to their shelves, the years pass, and 
the problem remains unsolved. The confusion of 
tongues here is terrible. Every day a new 
authority announces himself. Poets, philosophers, 
preachers, try their hand on us in turn. New 
prophets arise, and beseech us for our soul's sake 
to give ear to them — at last in an hour of inspira- 
tion they have discovered the final truth. Yet 
the doctrine of yesterday is challenged by a fresh 
philosophy to-day ; and the creed of to-day will 
fall in turn before the criticism of to-morrow. 
Increase of knowledge increaseth sorrow. And 
at length the conflicting truths, like the beams of 
light in the laboratory experiment, combine in the 
mind to make total darkness. 



36 ETERNAL LIFE. 

But here are two outstanding authorities agreed 
— not men, not philosophers, not creeds. Here is 
the voice of God and the voice of Nature. I can- 
not be wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes 
when uncertain of a voice from its very loudness, 
we catch the missing syllable in the echo. In 
God and Nature we have Voice and Echo. When 
I hear both, I am assured. My sense of hearing 
does not betray me twice. I recognize the Voice 
in the Echo, the Echo makes me certain of the 
Voice ; I listen and I know. The question of a 
Future Life is a biological question. Nature may 
be silent on other problems of Religion ; but here 
she has a right to speak. The whole confusion 
around the doctrine of Eternal Life has arisen 
from making it a question of Philosophy. We 
shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any speculation 
of Philosophy; the ethical relations here espe- 
cially are 'intimate and real. But in the first in- 
stance Eternal Life, as a question of Life % is a 
problem for Biology. The soul is a living organ- 
ism. And for any question as to the soul's Life 
we must appeal to Life-science. And what does 
the Life-science teach ? That if I am to inherit 
Eternal Life, I must cultivate a correspondence 
with the Eternal. This is a simple proposition, 
for Nature is always simple. I take this proposi- 
tion, and, leaving Nature, proceed to fill it in. I 
search everywhere for a clue to the Eternal. I 
ransack literature for a definition of a correspond- 
ence between man and God. Obviously that can 
only come from one source. And the analogies 



ETERNAL LIFE. 37 

of Science permit us to apply to it. All knowl- 
edge lies in Environment. When I want to know 
about minerals I go to minerals. When I want 
to know about flowers I go to flowers. And they 
tell me. In their own way they speak to me, each 
in its own way, and each for itself — not the 
mineral for the flower, which is impossible, nor the 
flower for the mineral, which is also impossible. 
So if I want to know about Man, I go to his part 
of the Environment. And he tells me about him- 
self, not as the plant or the mineral, for he is 
neither, but in his own way. And if I want to 
know about God, I go to His part of the Environ- 
ment. And he tells me about Himself, not as a 
Man, for He is not Man, but in His own w^ay. 
And just as naturally as the flower and the mineral 
and the Man, each in their own way, tell me about 
themselves, He tells me about Himself. He very 
strangely condescends indeed in making things 
plain to me, actually assuming for a time the Form 
of a Man that I at my poor level may better see 
Him. This is my opportunity to know Him. 
This incarnation is God making Himself acces- 
sible to human thought — God opening to man the 
possibility of correspondence through Jesus 
Christ. And this correspondence and this Environ- 
ment are those I seek. He Himself assures me, 
44 This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee, 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou 
has sent." Do I not now discern the deeper 
meaning in "Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent?" 
Do I not better understand with what vision and 



38 ETERNAL LIFE. 

rapture the profoundest of the disciples exclaims, 
" The Son of God is come, and hath given us an 
understanding that we might know Him that is 
True?" 1 

Having opened correspondence with the Eternal 
Environment, the subsequent stages are in the line 
of all other normal development. We have but 
to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich 
the correspondence that has been begun. And we 
shall soon find to our surprise that this is accom- 
panied by another and parallel process. The action 
is not all upon our side. The Environment also 
will be found to correspond. The influence of 
Environment is one of the greatest and most sub- 
stantial of modern biological doctrines. Of the 
power of Environment to form or transform or- 
ganisms, of its ability to develop or suppress 
function, of its potency in determining growth, 
and generally of its immense influence in Evolu- 
tion, there is no need now to speak. But Envi- 
ronment is now acknowledged to be one of the 
most potent factors in the Evolution of Life. 
The influence of Environment, too, seems to in- 
crease rather than diminish as we approach the 
higher forms of being. The highest forms are 
the most mobile ; their capacity of change is the 
greatest ; they are, in short, most easily acted on 
by Environment. And not only are the highest 
organisms the most mobile, but the highest parts 
of the highest organisms are more mobile than the 
lower. Environment can do little, comparatively, 

1 1 John v. 20. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 39 

in the direction of inducing variation in the body 
of a child; but how plastic is its mind ! How in- 
finitely sensitive is its soul ! How infallibly can 
it be tuned to music or to dissonance by the moral 
harmony or discord of its outward lot! How 
decisively indeed are we not all formed and 
moulded, made or unmade, by external circum- 
stance ! Might we not all confess with Ulysses, — 

" I am a part of all that I have met ? " 

Much more, then, shall we look for the influence 
of Environment on the spiritual nature of him 
who has opened correspondence with God. 
Reaching out his eager and quickened faculties to 
the spiritual world around him, shall he not be- 
come spiritual ? In vital contact with Holiness, 
shall he not become holy? Breathing now an 
atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall he miss 
becoming pure ? Walking with God from day to 
day, shall he fail to be taught of God? 

Growth in grace is sometimes described as a 
strange, mystical, and unintelligible process. It 
is mystical, but neither strange nor unintelligible. 
It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the lead- 
ing factor in sanctification is Influence of Environ- 
ment. The possibility of it depends upon the 
mobility of the organism; the result, on the 
extent and frequency of certain correspondences. 
These facts insensibly lead on to further sug- v 
gestion. Is it not possible that these biological 
truths may carry with them the clue to a still 
profounder philosophy — even that of Regenera- 
tion ? 



40 ETERNAL LIFE. 

Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of en- 
vironment certain aquatic animals have become 
adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. Breathing 
normally by gills, as the result and reward of a 
continued effort carried on from generation to 
generation to inspire the air of heaven direct, they 
have slowly acquired the lung-function. In the 
young organism, true to the ancestral type, the 
gill still persists — as in the tadpole of the com- 
mon frog. But as maturity approaches the true 
lung appears ; the gill gradually transfers its task 
to the higher organ. It then becomes atrophied 
and disappears, and finally respiration in the adult 
is conducted by lungs alone. 1 We may be far, in 
the meantime, from saying that this is proved. 
It is for those who accept it to deny the justice of 
the spiritual analogy. Is religion to them unsci- 
entific in its doctrine of Regeneration? Will the 
evolutionist who admits the regeneration of the 
frog under the modifying influence of a continued 
correspondence with a new environment, care to 
question the possibility of the soul acquiring such 
a faculty as that of Prayer, the marvellous breath- 
ing-function of the new creature, when in contact 
with the atmosphere of a besetting God ? Is the 
change from the earthly to the heavenly more 
mysterious than the change from the aquatic to 
the terrestrial mode of life ? Is Evolution to stop 

1 Vide also the remarkable experiments of Fraulein v. 
Chauvin on the Transformation of the Mexican Axolotl 
into Amblystoma. — Weismann's "Studies in the The- 
ory of Descent/' vol. ii. pt. iii. 



ETERNAL LIFE. 41 

with the organic ? If it be objected that it has 
taken ages to perfect the function in the batrach- 
ian, the reply is, that it will take ages to perfect 
the function in the Christian. For every thou- 
sand years the natural evolution will allow for the 
development of its organism, the Higher Biology 
will grant its product millions. We have indeed 
spoken of the spiritual correspondence as already 
perfect — but it is perfect only as the bud is per- 
fect. " It doth not yet appear what it shall be," 
any more than it appeared a million years ago 
what the evolving batrachian would be. 

But to return. We have been dealing with the 
scientific aspects of communion with God. Insen- 
sibly, from quantity we have been led to speak 
of quality. And enough has now been advanced 
to indicate generally the nature of that corre- 
spondence with which is necessarily associated 
Eternal Life. There remain but one or two de- 
tails to which we must lastly, and very briefly, 
address ourselves. 

The quality of everlastingness belongs, as we 
have seen, to a single correspondence, or rather to 
a single set of correspondences. But it is appa- 
rent that before this correspondence can take full 
and final effect a further process is necessary. 
By some means it must be separated from all the 
other correspondences of the organism which do 
not share its peculiar quality. In this life it is 
restrained by these other correspondences. They 
may contribute to it, or hinder it ; but they are 
essentially of a different order. They belong not 



42 ETERNAL LIFE. 

to Eternity but to Time, and to this present 
world; and, unless some provision is made for 
dealing with them, they will detain the aspiring 
organism in this present world till Time is ended. 
Of course, in a sense, all that belongs to Time be- 
longs also to Eternity; but these lower corre- 
spondences are in their nature unfitted for an 
Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their 
relation to their Environment, they would still 
not be Eternal. However opposed, apparently, to 
the scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is yet 
true that perfect correspondence with Environ- 
ment is not Eternal Life. A very important word 
in the complete definition is, in this sentence, 
omitted. On that word it has not been necessary 
hitherto, and for obvious reasons, to place any 
emphasis, but when we come to deal with false 
pretenders to Immortality we must return to it. 
Were the definition complete as it stands, it might, 
with the permission of the psycho-physiologist, 
guarantee the Immortality of every living thing. 
In the dog, for instance, the material framework 
giving way at death might leave the released 
canine spirit still free to inhabit the old Environ- 
ment. And so with every creature which had 
ever established a conscious relation with sur- 
rounding things. Now the difficulty in framing a 
theory of Eternal Life has been to construct one 
which will exclude the brute creation, drawing 
the line rigidly at man, or at least somewhere 
within the human race. Not that we need object 
to the Immortality of the dog, or of the whole in- 



ETERNAL LIFE. 43 

ferior creation. Nor that we need refuse a place 
to any intelligible speculation which would people 
the earth to-day with the invisible forms of all 
things that have ever lived. Only we still insist 
that this is tiot Eternal Life. And why? Be- 
cause their Environment is not Eternal. Their 
correspondence, however firmly established, is 
established with that which shall pass away. 
An Eternal Life demands an Eternal Environ- 
ment. 

The demand for a perfect Environment as well 
as for a perfect correspondence is less clear in Mr. 
Herbert Spencer's definition than it might be. 
But it is an essential factor. An organism might 
remain true to its Environment, but what if the 
Environment played it false? If the organism 
possessed the power to change, it could adapt it- 
self to successive changes in the Environment. 
And if this were guaranteed we should also have 
the conditions for Eternal Life fulfilled. But 
what if the Environment passed away altogether ? 
What if the earth swept suddenly into the sun ? 
This is a change of Environment against which 
there could be no precaution and for which there 
could be as little provision. With a changing 
Environment even, there must always remain the 
dread and possibility of a falling out of corre- 
spondence. At the best, Life would be uncertain. 
But with a changeless Environment — such as that 
possessed by the spiritual organism — the per- 
petuity of the correspondence, so far as the ex- 
ternal relation is concerned, is guaranteed. This 



44 ETERNAL LIFE. 

quality of permanence in the Environment dis- 
tinguishes the religious relation from every other. 
Why should not the musician's life be an Eternal 
Life ? Because, tor one thing, the musical world, 
the Environment with which he corresponds, is 
not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself 
could last eternally, the environing material things 
with which he corresponds must pass away. His 
soul might last forever — but not his violin. So 
the man of the world might last forever — but not 
the world. His Environment is not eternal ; nor 
are even his correspondences — the world passeth 
away and the lust thereof. 

We find, then, that man, or the spiritual man, is 
equipped with two sets of correspondences. One 
set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the 
other is temporal. But unless these are separated 
by some means the temporal will continue to im- 
pair and hinder the eternal. The final prepara- 
tion, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life 
must consist in the abandonment of the non-eter- 
nal elements. These must be unloosed and dis- 
sociated from the higher elements. And this is 
effected by a closing catastrophe — Death. 

Death ensues because certain relations in the 
organism are not adjusted to certain relations in 
the Environment. There will come a time in each 
history when the imperfect correspondences of the 
organism will betray themselves by a failure to 
compass some necessary adjustment. This is why 
Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is 
the necessary result of Imperfection, and the 



ETERNAL LIFE. 45 

necessary end of it. Imperfect correspondence 
gives imperfect and uncertain Life. " Perfect cor- 
respondence," on the other hand, according to 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, would be "perfect Life." 
To abolish Death, therefore, all that would be 
necessary would be to abolish Imperfection. But 
it is the claim of Christianity that it can abolish 
Death. And it is significant to notice that it does 
so by meeting this very demand of Science — it 
abolishes Imperfection. 

The part of the organism which begins to get 
out of correspondence with the Organic Environ- 
ment is the only part which is in vital correspond- 
ence with it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the 
natural man to be thrown out of correspondence 
with this Environment, it is of inestimable im- 
portance to the spiritual man. For so long as it 
is maintained the way is barred for a further 
Evolution. And hence the condition necessary 
for the further Evolution is that the spiritual be 
released from the natural. That is to say, the 
condition of the further Evolution is Death. 
Mors janua Vitce, therefore, becomes a scientific 
formula. Death, being the final sifting of all the 
correspondences, is the indispensable factor of 
the higher Life. In the language of Science, not 
less than of Scripture, " To die is gain." 

The sifting of the correspondences is done by 
Nature. This is its last and greatest contribution 
to mankind. Over the mouth of the grave the 
perfect and the imperfect submit to their final 



46 ETERNAL LIFE. 

separation. Each goes to its own — earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Spirit to Spirit. 
" The dust shall return to the earth as it was ; and 
the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 



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